PeakOil is You
The Man Who Survives Without Money
Re: The Man Who Survives Without Money
by jdmartin » Wed 22 Jul 2009, 21:47:57
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('BlisteredWhippet', 'Y')ou're just kicking the guy in the balls because you can. He's poor, he's a bum, so its okay to judge him. He isn't providing back to "society" because society, in his view, doesn't provide; it takes. He's an honest parasite, which is heresy in modern conventional terms.
No, if I'm "kicking him in the balls" for anything it's his hypocrisy. He criticizes society for the very same things he partakes of himself. He doesn't want to contribute to society, but he wants to take from society. He rejects only those notions that don't have immediate value to him while embracing those that do have value to him. Everyone else does the same thing, only what they value and he values are reversed. That's why he's able to survive such a lifestyle. I *doubt* this man survives in the Moab on grasshoppers and roots if everything else goes belly-up. Frankly, it's a cop-out to hole up in a cave and lament on all the ills of society. Get up off your Expletive deleted. and do something about it. His approach is, as George Carlin would say, one big stroke job - he's stroking himself and complaining about the guy stroking himself next door. It certainly is American, that's for sure 
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he article describes a true scavenger lifestyle. You're misattributing the retrieval of garbage to a selfish impulse.
I have nothing against a scavenger lifestyle. I think it's great that someone can use the ridiculous amounts of waste we construct. But get off your high-horse and quit moralizing about it. I don't judge the guy on the street pushing a shopping cart or begging because, frankly, I don't give a Expletive deleted. what he does. If that's his thing, and he isn't hurting me, more power to you.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hen we want to insult someone we tell them to "Eat Expletive deleted.", right? This reflects the experience of humiliation. Recall the opposite of humility: Pride. To eat "Expletive deleted." means being culturally denatured. Notice how tightly human cultures are bound to certain foods. It is not surprising that murder suspect Tremayne Durham traded freedom for KFC (http://www.shortnews.com/start.cfm?id=72303). Look what we're trading for ground beef: the climate, the soil base, etc.! Take away someone's traditional cultural foods and you have one depressed human being with a profound existential dilemma. This is why no amount of agitation will remove the high fructose corn syrup and beef from American hands. Not now, not ever, unless you're willing to rewire brains wholesale.
In deadheads, cultural rebellion is a fashion sense, a taste, or a lifestyle for the weekend. A bunch of people hanging around, drinking beer, smoking weed, barbecuing and listening to country music is not really a separate paradigm from the mainstream. "All we are are dust in the wind" is just a slogan. The reality is that they have health insurance policies and rely on civilization for everything except entertainment.
Expletive deleted. . Everyone will feel peak oil or economic crisis. What's he going to catch rabbits with? Homemade bow & arrow? Think he'd fend off the other zombies looking for rabbits? No, caveman will suffer just like everyone else. It's imaginary Expletive deleted. to be writing a blog about surviving "off the grid" so to speak while you're enjoying the grid courtesy of your fellow man. It's no different than the hardcore doomers here that think they're going to hole up in their fortress and thrive while society melts down around them. $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '-')This is the rhetorical device: misappropriate fact, then use that assumption as a basis for criticism. He's obviously living without money, not "making" the living, but just "living". Why does he go into town to use a computer, read books and talk to people? Because his humanity demands the communion of socializing... with his people. Namely, us. Not Indians or Ecuadorans.
After fueling up their cars, Twyman says they bowed their heads and asked God for cheaper gas.There was no immediate answer, but he says other motorists joined in and the service station owner didn't run them off.
He's only able to exist in this fashion because he consumes the excesses of the masses. Instead of being scornful of that society, he should be grateful for its assistance in allowing him to live the life he wants. He didn't want to be the caveman in India because everyone was doing it, he wanted to do it where there was lots of wealth to prove a point? Please. If I had to guess, I'd say he found that starving to death in a 3rd world country was less glamorous than living off the backs of the Americans he finds so distasteful. 
